Overthinking

2022-01-24

Hello, it’s been… much longer than what I expected.

My initial goal was to write one of these every Sunday, but as you can see, nearly a month as passed already.

Why did this happen? Well, because somewhere along the way I lost track of why I wanted to do this. I felt as if I had to do it, while all of this just started because it was something I wanted to do. What happened was that I got lost, I mixed up the goal with the metric (which was doing it every Sunday).

I thought too hard. Instead of forgetting about everything else and just spending time thinking and writing, I spent time thinking about how I had to do it. I made a big deal out of it and so it became a daunting task. A mix of wanting to do it but not wanting to do it badly.

The solution was simple. I should see this as when I started it—as an experiment. It doesn’t matter if it comes out poorly or not. What matters is that I keep showing up, and that I learn from practice.

Overthinking leads us nowhere. It’s by tossing aside those pestering thoughts that we can grow. Instead of trying to do it perfectly, we show up and practice regardless of what the outcome might be.